Transformers Prime - Sunburst
by MastermindKQ
Summary: A femme bot of unknown origin crash lands on Earth. Neither Autobot nor Decepticon, having abnormal biomech organs and memory loss, she must find out who she is and why she's there. With the help of the Autobots, she soon discovers her mission, and possibly something more. (I do not own Transformers. I'm totally late to this game because I only recently discovered TFP. Doh!)
1. Chapter 1

_**[[Story takes place in Season 2 shortly after the Autobots rescue Optimus/Orion Pax.]]**_

CHAPTER 1

In the early light of dawn, a mysterious flaming pod streaked across the skies, crash landing in a remote forest somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Just before time of impact, Ratchet picked up a signal back at the Autobot base.

"Autobot or con?" Arcee asked.

"I can't tell yet," muttered Ratchet, "but it's certainly Cybertronian. Hmmm, looks like it abruptly stopped moving."

Bumblebee bleeped that it might have crashed.

"You may be right, Bee," said Optimus, "We should go investigate."

"Arcee," Optimus commanded heading toward the groundbridge, "bridge us to those coordinates, please. Bumblebee, Ratchet, come with me."

"Me?!" asked a surprised Ratchet, "I'm no scout."

"If this is, indeed, a crash," Optimus explained, "we may need your medical expertise." Ratchet sighed and grunted an acknowledgement.

"Wish Bulkhead was back," remarked Arcee wistfully, dialing into the coordinates and activating the groundbridge. "I'd make him stay here. I'd rather scout any day."

* * *

**{{At the crash site}}**

The three Autobots emerged from the bridge and found themselves at the edge of a crater, thick dust clouds everywhere, some nearby trees still on fire. They felt the earth lightly rumbling as if large boulders were being pushed somewhere close by.

"Autobots, proceed with the utmost caution," warned Optimus.

When the dust settled, they saw a heavily damaged, cracked pod lying on the crater floor among the rocks. A figure emerged out of the crack, pushing off the rocks that had fallen in the way. She weakly tumbled out of the craft leaning on it to keep herself upright.

The bots slid down the crater's edge shining the lights of their ion blasters upon her, noting her dual gold and chrome coloring, along with the blue trim of her features. As the bots lowered their weapons and walked toward her for a closer look, Prime's Matrix suddenly began humming and flashing in his chest plate.

Startled by the distraction, all the bots halted and looked at Prime's chest plate before turning back to the femme who was now covered in sizzling bolts of electricity, shaking her uncontrollably, then knocking her into stasis.

The Autobots quickly retracted their weapons and Bee ran over to see if she was alright.

Ratchet quickly glanced over at Optimus' chest plate, which had stopped blinking. "Could something have malfunctioned during the Vector Sigma download?"

"I do not know," replied Optimus "but we need to get our new visitor back to base."

Bumblebee intended to lift and carry her back but discovered she was much heavier than her small frame let on.

He scratched his head, bleeping to no one in particular that the femme couldn't have been much larger than Arcee.

"Allow me," Optimus said walking toward them.

"Oh, no you don't," cut in Ratchet, "After what just happened, I don't want you anywhere near her."

"Very well, old friend," Optimus stepped back respectfully.

"Arcee," he spoke into his comms-link, "Reopen the groundbridge."

Bee and Ratchet threw the femme's arms around each of their shoulders and half carried, half dragged her through the groundbridge. Optimus followed them, keeping a safe distance.

"She must be made out of a different kind of metal alloy," Ratchet muttered, "It's as if she has the weight of two or three Arcees." The SynthEn would have come in handy right about then, Ratchet thought to himself.

* * *

**{{Back at base}}**

They laid the femme on the medic table and the bots gathered around, Optimus hanging back. Ratchet began a body scan to see the extent of the damage.

As he scanned her head, Ratchet exclaimed, "This can't be possible!"

He did a re-scan, dissatisfied with what he was seeing. Checking his arm scanner to make sure it was working properly, he did a third scan. In disbelief, Ratchet discovered that the femme had no trans-scanner. Continuing on with his scan, Ratchet also discovered her T-cog was smaller than its casing.

"By the Allspark," he exclaimed, "It appears her T-cog is shrinking!"

Bumblebee and Arcee looked at each other, confused. "If her T-cog is shrinking, it would stand to reason that she has a very limited time before she stops transforming altogether," answered Prime gravely.

"So, lemme get this straight," Arcee said, putting a hand on her hip and gesturing her other hand toward the femme, "She could be stuck in this protoform…forever?"

"Assuming this is her protoform," Ratchet replied.

At that moment, Bulkhead sped into the base, blaring metal music and came to a halt so the kids could jump out. The loud noise brought the femme out of stasis as the kids ran up to check her out.

"Who are YOU?!" Miko asked.

"I… I don't remember." The femme said hesitantly sitting upright and looking down at the three tiny forms.

Raf pointed at her insignia which was neither a Decepticon or Autobot symbol. It was a circle with lines radiating from it.

"Looks sorta like a sunburst," Jack noted.

"Let's call you Sunburst!" Miko exclaimed, "that is, until we know your real name."

Sunburst smiled, liking the idea.

"We should find you a vehicle form to scan. Maybe you could be an SUV! Even though it'll never be as cool as Bulkhead's. Or maybe a Beetle, those things are cute!" Miko bubbled excitedly, thinking of all of the possibilities.

"She has no trans-scanner," Ratchet shook his head sadly, "She won't be able to scan any alternate earth vehicle mode. Or transform into it."

"That sucks," replied Miko bluntly.

The room fell into an awkward silence.

"What I think Miko means is, uh, you know," Bulkhead stammered trying to be helpful, "I mean, I just couldn't imagine what it'd be like to NOT have an alternate vehicle form here. On this planet, you'd stick out like a sore th-"

Bumblebee elbow-jabbed Bulk forcefully in the chest reminding him that his comments weren't helping either.

"Oops, sorry," Bulkhead shrugged sheepishly.

More awkward silence.

Bee brightly bleeped a suggestion that they go back to the pod to look for clues and everyone was relieved to have changed the topic.

After making sure Optimus' proximity didn't cause any further harm to Sunburst, it was decided that he, she and Bumblebee would groundbridge back to the pod and then figure out if it should be moved back to base.

* * *

**{{Back at the crash site}}**

The three bots peeped inside the pod through the crack, noting the open chamber where Sunburst must have been in stasis for the entire journey. They also saw that rust had eaten away at some of the console panels.

While examining its outer shell, Optimus ran his fingers down the characters engraved upon it, studying them. "This is in an ancient Cybertronian language, long since considered a dead language."

Prime looked over at Sunburst, narrowing his optics thoughtfully, "You have existed for billions of years."

Just then, a slew of Decepticon seeker jets descended from the sky, shooting at the trio.

Instinctively, Bee and Prime stepped in front of Sunburst, shielding her from the cons, as they both shot back. But the jets seemed to come in full force. Worse yet, the bots saw vehicons driving toward them on the horizon. Sunburst, terrified, crouched down and took cover to avoid the shots. She didn't know what else to do.

"Autobots," Prime spoke into his comms-link between firing shots, "We need backup. Now!"

A groundbridge instantly appeared as Bulkhead and Arcee jumped out, ready for action. As tough as they all were, the bots were severely outnumbered. Many of the cons had landed, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with them.

With wide optics, Sunburst watched the ground vehicons coming closer. She saw each bot kicking, punching or shooting multiple cons. But for every con that went down, two more would appear. She saw that her new friends were losing the fight.

The unfairness of it angered her to the point of rage.

Unable to control her rage, Sunburst rose from her crouched position, hands clenched. Without thinking, she tucked and rolled herself into the fight, transforming into a giant ground fusion cannon. The cannon immediately shot off powerful blasts at the incoming Decepticon army, large enough to take down dozens at a time. The sky soon looked like it was raining dead and injured Decepticons.

The cannon swiveled over to see Bulkhead pummeled to the ground by a group of cons.

Still angry, Sunburst quickly transformed out of cannon form into her robot form just long enough to run over to Bulkhead and jump toward his arm, which was the only thing visible under the pile of cons. In mid-air, she transformed again into a hand-held gatling blaster, and landed, handle-end at Bulk's hand.

Bulk hesitated for a split second before reaching for the gatling, pulling it toward himself and using it to rapid-fire a spray of Energon pellets at the cons surrounding him. Once the cons were blown off him, Bulk jumped up, heaving the massive gatling with both arms and began shooting more cons off the other bots.

From above, one of the seeker jets force-fired on the pod until it exploded in a cloud of flames and smoke. Seeing that the pod was lost, Optimus commanded the Autobots to fall back and one-by-one, they jumped back through the bridge. As the group back through the groundbridge, Sunburst jumped out of Bulk's arms and transformed back into robot form.

Arriving at the base, Sunburst clutched her side, groaning softly. Ratchet quickly ushered her over to the medical bay for another examination.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

**{{At Autobot HQ}}**

In the main base area, Bumblebee and Bulkhead excitedly recounted to the kids what happened when Sunburst had joined the battle. Bee did a mock tuck and roll while Bulk acted out how he shot the gatling blaster, making "Pow! Pow! Pow!" sounds. The children's eyes were as wide as saucers and Miko was so bitter that she had missed out.

Arcee and Optimus also watched on but for different reasons. She in amusement and he to process what had happened during the battle and what it might mean.

Ratchet walked in a short while later. He pulled Optimus aside and somberly whispered that, just as he had suspected, her T-cog had shrunken even more.

"I fear there's only one or two transformations left in her before the ability is gone," Ratchet said, furrowing his brows with worry, "It is unlikely she'll survive on this planet without being able to blend in."

Optimus wanted to know where she was and Ratchet indicated that she had taken the lift to the rooftop of the base.

Prime went up to join Sunburst, who was staring out into the desert, deep in thought. Sunburst turned to him upon hearing his footsteps.

"I didn't know I could become those weapons…" she started, almost apologetically.

"There may be other things you may not know you can do." Optimus replied as his chest plate opened revealing the blinding light of the Matrix of Leadership from his spark. "It is time for you to know who you are, Child of Primes."

Sunburst felt her own chest opening. Before she was even able to look down at it, she was yanked off her peds, pulled in toward Optimus until their chests, then sparks connected. Her legs dangled haphazardly because of their size difference. But despite the struggles that Ratchet and Bumblebee (and even Bulkhead, to some extent) had with how densely heavy she was, Optimus seemed completely unaffected by it.

Sunburst's optics rolled upward and shadows of small Cybertronian symbols began scrolling down over them. The sheer volume of data she was downloading from Optimus was almost too much to bear. It was the wisdom of the Primes, collected and passed on through billions of years.

In her mind, she went backwards in time. She saw the catastrophic fall of Cybertron and the mass exodus. Further back in time, she saw the hundreds of thousands of Cybertronians who lost their sparks in the Great War. Even further back, she saw Megatron rallying his newly formed army of followers in the Pits of Kaon.

The memories went back further still. Visions of each of the Thirteen Primes appeared, then Unicron the Destroyer, then the Well of the Allsparks, and finally to the very last memory, the one of Primus himself.

Then she knew.

She knew who she was – what she was – and why she was sent to this planet.

When the download was complete and their sparks disconnected, Optimus took hold of her arms and gently lowered her back down on the rooftop, gazing at her expectantly.

"I… I am the daughter of Solus Prime." Sunburst said slowly, staring into space, optics widening by the overwhelming burden of what she knew.

"I was made billions of years ago by her hand. She and Alpha Trion sent me to this planet toward a pre-determined destination. I do not know why but they made me forget everything before sending me off. My pod contained the destination coordinates but the console malfunctioned somewhere along the way. I have not reached my destination."

She looked at up at Optimus, "You will help me?" It wasn't really a question, more of a confirmation.

"Of course we will do everything in our power to help you on your quest," Optimus assured. And with a twinkle in his optic, he added "But first, tell me what the original Primes were like."

* * *

Sunburst grinned, happy to share with Optimus the stories of the Primes. How Solus had such a terrible temper. How the others Primes stayed out of her way when she was mad. How Megatronus Prime seemed to be the only one who enjoyed her outbursts.

"I felt the same rage in me during this last battle, how unfair the odds were," Sunburst said clenching her dental plates at the memory.

"But like your mother, your anger is aimed at injustice and oppression," Optimus said protectively, "It also saved our lives."

Optimus wanted to know more about Megatronus Prime. Sunburst described him an arrogant and ambitious being, although Solus never saw it that way. Solus thought of him as confident and having fierce loyalty for their kind. Solus had spent a great deal of time defending him to the other Primes.

"Do you think Solus and Megatronus may have... co-created you?" wondered Optimus out loud.

"I have no idea," said Sunburst with a slight shiver, "And I'm not sure I want to know."

"Understood," replied Optimus, no longer pushing the topic.

Sunburst and Optimus went on to talk about the Prime dynasty, regretful that so few were left. Optimus confessed that he sometimes felt very alone being the last of the Primes. It was something he had never uttered out loud until that moment and there was such an immeasurable sense of relief for him to be able to finally admit it.

Sunburst reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder when they both heard a whizzing sound behind them. They turned around to see a large scrappy metal ball flying at them, in Sunburst's direction. She reached out and caught the lob, which knocked her back a few arns.

Bulkhead and Arcee walked up to them.

"What are you guys talking about?" Arcee asked.

"Yeah," added Bulkhead, "It's been hours."

Without answering, Sunburst lightly bounced the metal ball back and forth in her hands a few times, as if deciding what to do next. Then, a smile slowly crept across her face.

Sunburst took a few more steps back and chucked the ball at Optimus shouting, "Think fast!"

Optimus, while a little caught off guard, still had the reflexes quick enough to catch the lob.

"I'm going long!" Sunburst hollered over her shoulder as she ran across the rooftop to the far end.

Optimus looked at the metal ball like it was a foreign object. He looked at Sunburst, whose figure was growing smaller with distance. He looked back again at the ball for the longest time.

Finally, with a slightly amused expression, Optimus wound his arm back and pitched a powerful lob toward Sunburst.

Then he ran after her.

Sunburst caught the lob and playfully threw it over the side of the base. Optimus, up for the challenge, jumped off the side, caught the ball on its way down and landed with a reverberating thud on the flat mountaintop below. Optimus turned around and hurled it at Bulkhead who, along with Arcee, had jumped off the side of the base to join them.

"Is this really happening?" muttered Bulk to Arcee, as he threw the ball back at Optimus.

Instead of catching the ball, Optimus slammed it with his open servo, redirecting it over to Sunburst, who was not expecting that and just barely caught it.

Optimus and Sunburst ran around lobbing the ball back and forth several more times. With every throw, they each made it increasingly difficult for the other one to catch. Optimus almost missed catching a lob that Sunburst threw high above his head.

Sunburst almost fell over the edge of the mountaintop catching a lob that would have flown over the mountainside if she hadn't caught it. Both Arcee and Bulkhead had sucked their intakes in that moment, afraid of the very long fall that Sunburst would have taken down the mountainside. But Sunburst just laughed merrily.

"So, this is how Primes let loose," Arcee said smirking.

"Let's leave 'em alone," Bulk said, chuckling.

* * *

After the pair exhausted themselves from lobbing, they stood side-by-side on the rooftop, watching the stars begin to appear in the sky as the twilight became nightfall.

"It must be nights like these," remarked Sunburst, "That remind you of Cybertron."

"Yes, very much," replied Optimus wistfully.

"Optimus," Sunburst said turning to him, making sure she had his full attention, "Cybertron is not lost. I promise you."

Optimus nodded, feeling encouraged. There was something in the way Sunburst said this that made him see it as truth. Which reminded him…

"I have not yet asked, do you have a real name?"

"No, Solus didn't give me one."

"That seems odd."

"It's not the only odd thing about me."

"That is true."

"I really do like the name Sunburst, though."

"Then Sunburst will be your name." Optimus proclaimed, "Now, tell me what we can do to help you with your mission."

For the next hour, Sunburst explained what she would need from the Autobots.

Optimus listened intently and once she was finished, he nodded affirming that they would be able to do what she asked.

After a lingering silence, Optimus finally said, "It has been an eventful and exhausting day for you and tomorrow will by equally so. You should go power down and get your strength back." Sunburst agreed and the pair took the lift back down to the base floor.

* * *

After first making sure Sunburst found her way to one of the back bays to get some rest, Optimus transformed into his big rig form and headed out for a long drive into the desert night. Part of him was thinking through how to make sure their plan worked tomorrow.

The other part of him didn't want the plan to work at all.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

**{{At Autobot HQ}}**

When the Autobots assembled the next morning, Optimus and Sunburst debriefed them on what was uncovered the previous night, how the Matrix of Leadership had shown Sunburst who she was and why she was sent to Earth. The bots were a little in awe that they were in the presence of a direct descendent of a Prime.

Then Optimus announced that Sunburst would need their help to obtain a set of coordinates which could only be found in a data core on the Decepticon ship.

"You know as well as I do that it's nearly impossible to locate the Nemesis," said Ratchet, "Their ship has cloaking technology and is shrouded from detection."

"That does not matter," Sunburst explained, "Since last night, an internal homing sensor has been activated within me that is locked onto the location of the coordinate data I need. And if that data is on the Nemesis, which I believe it is, then that is where it will take me."

"So your homing device works the way the Vector Sigma Key helped us find Vector Sigma?" asked Arcee.

Sunburst nodded.

"Then why doesn't the homing device lock onto the actual coordinates themselves?" Arcee wondered.

"I'm not sure," admitted Sunburst, "Maybe it was too risky for me to know the coordinates, in case I was captured. Perhaps my pod should have taken me there but something glitched along the way."

"So Plan B kicked in," Arcee said, "The Primes think of everything."

Sunburst nodded and continued, "Once onboard, I'll need your team's help in covering for me so I can get to the ship's databanks."

Sunburst went on to explain that while searching for the war ship, she'd turn off her signal beacon to avoid Decepticon detection. But as soon as she found her way onto the Nemesis, she would comm-link the rest of the team so they could bridge to her coordinates.

Bee buzzed the question that everyone was thinking.

"Yeah, how ARE you going to get on the Nemesis?" ask Bulkhead.

In reply, Sunburst jumped in the air and gracefully transformed into an X-wing fighter. The X-wing hovered for just a moment before her jet thrusters fired up and shot her out of the base.

"Another form?!" Bulk exclaimed, "Are you serious?!"

"At this point, I'm no longer surprised," Ratchet said, shaking his head.

The Autobots gathered around the green monitors watching and waiting for what felt like eons.

* * *

**{{On the Nemesis}}**

After weaving her way across the country, relying on her internal sensor to guide her, Sunburst finally located the Nemesis and made her descent.

She landed on the Nemesis' empty upper hull clutching her side in pain. She took some comfort in knowing that it wouldn't be too long before she'd never have to experience that pain again.

When the pain finally subsided a few kliks later, Sunburst radioed Autobot headquarters. Shortly after, the groundbridge opened near her and the bots emerged onto the empty deck.

"So, uhh, after this mission, you wanna join Team Prime?" asked Bulk grinning, "We could sure use someone who knows where the Nemesis is. And your lobbing ain't bad either."

"I'd like to, but I can't" Sunburst replied with a sad smile.

The Nemesis alarms went off at that moment and the bots knew they'd been detected. Undeterred, the team ran toward the jetway entrance shooting the doors down.

As the doors exploded, a group of Decepticon drones appeared in the entranceway firing back. The Autobots fought their way past the drones and into the ship.

Despite being able to transform into weapons, Sunburst didn't have weapons of her own, so the bots had to form a protective wall around her. They shot their way through the corridors relying on Sunburst to point them in the right direction.

They made their way toward the Energon storage vault. Just past the vault was a second door.

It was a door to the room containing the data workstation that, unknown to all of them, was the same room where Orion Pax had been during his stay on the Nemesis.

Sunburst ran inside and closed it while the rest of the Autobots stayed outside shooting down the oncoming cons.

* * *

**{{Inside the data room}}**

Sunburst pulled up the most recent files, finding most of them encrypted. After typing furiously, she pulled up the three most recent unencrypted coordinates, the same ones Orion Pax had deciphered.

Sumburst was so focused on finding the data that she didn't realize she wasn't alone in the room.

Knockout jammed his Energon prod into the neck of this new femme sending electrical bolts all over her. She let out a yelp and fell over, nearly passing out.

"Well, well, well," Knockout stood over her smirking, "What have we here?"

Knockout wondered what the scrap this femme could want with those coordinates, she clearly wasn't an Autobot. But it didn't matter, he thought to himself, because her spark was about to be snuffed.

* * *

**{{Outside the data room}}**

Optimus' chest plate began pulsing rapidly. He knew Sunburst was in trouble.

"Stay here and defend!" he commanded the bots. Optimus pressed the door pad and jumped inside the room as the door closed behind him.

* * *

**{{Inside the data room}}**

Knockout raised his arms, getting ready to plunge the prod into the femme's chest when an Energon blast hit his arm, throwing him off balance. A second Energon blast blew past him shooting a large hole in the data core monitor. While Knockout was still flailing about, Optimus Prime leapt at him, swinging a mighty punch that solidly connected to Knockout's face. Knockout got knocked out.

Optimus knelt down to gather Sunburst's weak body in his arms. "Are you okay?" he asked with deep concern. Then glancing at the now-broken monitor, he added, "Did you get the coordinates?"

Sunburst gathered the last of her strength. "Yes. I've found the coordinates and I've got to get there soon…" Sunburst trailed off.

"…before you can no longer transform," Optimus finished.

She nodded.

Optimus paused thoughtfully before continuing, "Sunburst, if things had been different…" He fell silent even though he had much more to say.

Sunburst raised a hand up to him and Optimus eagerly retracted his faceplate so that she could stroke his face.

"I know," she said, "I'd have been honored to be your sparkmate."

Optimus smiled, squeezed her hand, and backed away to give her room. He reached over and hit the door pad to re-open it. Sunburst jumped up, transformed into X-wing form and shot out of the room, above the heads of both the bots and cons. The X-wing made its way down the corridors and out of the Decepticon ship.

Optimus hit his comm-link, "Ratchet, send a bridge to our coordinates."

The bridge opened inside the data room behind them and all of the Autobots jumped through, relieved that their mission had been accomplished.

* * *

**{{Somewhere}}**

The X-wing flew over snowy mountaintops until she found the one she was looking for, the one that was leveled off near the top. Upon finding it, she flew straight upward for several kliks. Then she did a nosedive straight down toward her target at breakneck speed. Just moments before impact, she made her next and final transformation into a giant hammer. THE giant hammer.

The daughter of Solus Prime, now the Forge of Solus Prime slammed into the mountaintop, causing explosions of boulders. The rocks that shot toward the sky finally fell to the ground littering the mountaintop, dirtying the light snow. Many of the rocks fell on top of the Forge, burying her underneath.

It was there that she laid, waiting to be found.

THE END


End file.
